


Fading Inward

by DreamerInSilico



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Modern AU, and VERY SNEAKY solavellan, aux pairing morrigan/leliana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 12:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5334911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerInSilico/pseuds/DreamerInSilico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian is a journalist who sets up a meeting to interview former Captain Cullen Rutherford about his involvement in the Riftwar, and they form more than one unexpected connection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fading Inward

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Dragon Age Reverse Big Bang 2015, as a companion piece to [this fabulous art by noisykid on tumblr!](http://noisykid.tumblr.com/post/134425657125/coffee-shop-romance-by-noisykid-story-title)

“Beastly southern weather and its ridiculous snow,” Dorian Pavus muttered to himself as he kicked half-melted clumps of the offending white mess off his boots just outside the Herald’s Rest café, preparing to enter. For perhaps the hundredth time that winter alone, he asked himself if it had _really_ been necessary to move all the way to the northwest edge of Ferelden, and for the hundredth time, the answer was still ‘yes.’ 

Begrudgingly. 

The university where he’d studied could not have been a more perfect match for his curiosity on altogether too many subjects, and graduating from its prestigious journalism program had gotten him far better connections than he’d have been able to make had he stayed in Minrathous. The fact that his parents were also in Minrathous didn’t help the city’s appeal, as far as Dorian was concerned, either. 

Still, Ferelden was blighted cold, and days like the one at hand never failed to make Dorian question his own judgement, however briefly. Hopefully this Captain Rutherford fellow he was supposed to meet would at least be interesting, though Dorian had seldom gotten on well with military sorts - even ex-military, as Rutherford now was. 

Dorian was ten minutes early, and had not yet gotten a message from his contact saying the other man had arrived, so he claimed a seat at a small table, with his back to the blustery winter tableau at the window. (Maybe if he didn’t look at it for a while, he could pretend it wasn’t there.) 

_I’ve got a table on the left side of the dining room, by the window, when you get here,_ he texted Rutherford, then smiled pleasantly to the waitress who had appeared to take his drink order. 

“I’ll have - “ His phone vibrated almost immediately, displaying a response:

_here now - see you shortly_

“... On second thought, it seems like the person I’m supposed to be meeting likes to be as early as I do,” he murmured, raising his eyebrows at his phone as he set it back down. “Give us a moment, would you? No need to run back and forth for me just as he’s about to sit down.” 

“You got it.” She flashed him a smile and whisked off toward another recently-occupied table. 

The man who walked in twenty seconds later and immediately cast his faintly weary-looking gaze toward Dorian’s table was the sort of clean-cut one almost automatically expected from the military sorts - his jaw was square and clean-shaven, sandy-blonde curls cut short, shirt collar crisp and possibly even starched. But it was neither those features nor the more general observation that he was _rather_ attractive that most caught Dorian’s attention in that moment. 

It was the Fading. 

People who experienced the phenomenon tended to describe it to people who didn’t by using the Orlesian phrase, déjà vu, but it was so much more than that. Dorian was quite certain he’d never had this exact sight before. He’d never even been in this café before. But the sense that somehow, somewhere, he had seen Captain Cullen Rutherford before was almost jarring in its intensity. 

Chess pieces.

_Gloat all you like - I have this one._

_Are you… sassing me, Commander?_

Dorian shook his head to himself, slightly. He was not one of the people who took such moments as prophecy. For much of his life, he’d simply assumed the phenomenon, never-spoken words and all, to be a symptom of his own very active imagination. But then he’d dallied in physics at university, befriended a woman who’d gone on to get an advanced degree in the subject, and had understood that there might - likely was, even - more to it than that. No one knew exactly what, though. 

“Serah Pavus, I assume?”

Now the surprisingly-extra-mysterious Captain (Commander?) Rutherford was standing in front of him and extending a hand. Dorian shook himself out of his reverie with practiced efficiency and rose, taking the hand with a coy smile to cover his brief internal awkwardness. “Dorian, please. And you would be Captain Rutherford.”

The man laughed, eyes crinkling as he shook Dorian’s hand. “Cullen. But yes.” 

“Well then, Cullen, it is a pleasure to meet you, and I thank you on behalf of my editor and myself - mostly myself - for agreeing to meet with me.” He released Cullen’s hand and reclaimed his seat, leaning back into the chair. He opened his mouth to speak again, but the waitress must have been keeping an eye on their table, she materialized beside it almost immediately. 

“Something to drink, serahs?” she asked brightly. 

“Cappuccino for me, if you please,” Dorian answered promptly, as his companion seemed mildly disoriented by the sudden appearance of the waitress and accompanying question. 

“Ahh…. just… tea. Breakfast, if you have it.” 

“Sure do,” she confirmed, scribbling the orders down on her pad and disappearing again. 

Cullen was eyeing Dorian from across the table. “So…” he said, at once faintly awkward yet self-aware with it. “How does this work, then? I admit I’ve never done an interview for… anything, really.” 

Dorian couldn’t resist… _sassing_ him a bit with the answer. “Well, generally, I ask questions and you answer them, and your answers find your way into my chapter of the book that’s being written. But we could always warm up with a light topic like chess strategies, or something, I suppose.” 

That struck a chord. Dorian wasn’t sure which chord, but Cullen’s brow furrowed into a frown as he watched Dorian a bit more cautiously. 

“I haven’t ever played in tournaments, or anything like that. How…?” 

“Lucky guess,” Dorian assured him, with a flippant wave of one hand. “...Or maybe I’m just good at spotting people who might share my interests.” He winked, lips tugging up into his best rakish grin. 

To his surprise, Cullen _blushed_. Well, then. Maybe more than one type of interest. 

“That’s a hell of a sixth sense to have - ‘oh, you look like you play chess.’ To a military guy. You’re really good, I have to think, or else talked to someone who knows me.” Cullen smirked dryly at him, surprise carefully-if-obviously tucked away, out of sight. 

“I’d say I do my research - because I do - but that really was just a guess,” Dorian laughed. Sort of. People’s reactions to being told that he’d Faded with them varied rather wildly, from indifference to curiosity to incredulity to simple irritation. He’d learned not to mention it. 

“With guesses that good, do you really need me to tell you about the riftwar?” Cullen asked, quirking an eyebrow - almost playfully, Dorian fancied. 

He smirked back. “With guesses that good, I especially need you to tell me, or I’ll invent something completely ridiculous and be far too sure of myself, I assure you. So, my friend!” His tattooed automatically dipped into his coat pocket to withdraw his phone and toggle a recording. “Speaking of…anything you say to me here that you don’t ask me not to use, I probably will, but you’ll receive a copy of the manuscript before it’s printed for approval. If that’s alright with you, I’ll commence with the interrogation.” 

Cullen spread his hands flat on the table between them. “Interrogate away.” 

“Cappuccino, and a breakfast tea,” chimed the waitress’s voice as she set the cups down in front of them. 

“Thank you, darling,” Dorian replied automatically, his eyes flicking up to the waitress in acknowledgement before rapidly returning to his companion… whom he just barely caught blinking in surprise, as if… as if he’d misinterpreted the direction of Dorian’s thanks, by the sheepish look in his face. How _delightful_. 

Dorian couldn’t quite stop his smirk as his finger traced the rim of his cappuccino mug. “Well, to start out with, give me an idea of the timeline, here - you were in the service for quite some time, weren’t you?” 

“Ten years,” Cullen confirmed with a brief nod as he picked up his tea to carefully sip at it, before wincing and replacing it upon the table. 

“And you were discharged not long after the riftwar.” 

He nodded, the slightest shadow creeping into his expression. “That’s right. The timing was… fortunate, really, that my term of service was up when it was. I was ready to be out.” 

“Because of the war?” The conflict known as the ‘riftwar’ had not in fact been a ‘war’ in most senses - more a desperate series of skirmishes - but it had left its mark on the world, and even moreso on the people who experienced it directly. 

“You see a lot of things in the military that you don’t want to see. The riftwar… took it to a whole new level.” Cullen gave him a brief, wry smile over a second attempt at sipping the tea - this one apparently successful. “After a while, you get used to the idea that you could get blown up or shot. None of that prepares you for something like… like _that_ , though. I’d had enough afterward.” 

“Mmmn.” Dorian hummed an acknowledgement, studying the man across from him carefully. Cullen seemed caught between wanting to talk about it, and not wanting to think about it. A curious scenario. “What few statistics are available suggest there aren’t very many of the Faded in the military, relatively speaking. Would you say that’s correct - and did you perhaps know any?” 

Cullen raised sandy eyebrows. “I honestly don’t have a good idea of the statistics. It’s something most people I know view as a personal matter, not something you talk about much. But I did have one friend in the service I knew was one.” He paused, sighed. “She… told me, because when we first met, she recognized me. It was… a very strange thought. I asked her a few things about it, but never really understood, mind you.” 

Well, that was interesting. “How did she recognize you; did she say? I can only imagine that was rather strange to hear.” 

His companion hesitated, scratching the back of his neck somewhat uncomfortably. “I… I’d rather not have that stuff in print.” 

“Off the record, then,” Dorian assured him immediately. “For my own personal curiosity. If you don’t mind. You see, I’m rather familiar with the phenomenon, myself.” 

Surprise flickered across Cullen’s face. “You’re one, too?” 

“That, I am.” 

Cullen sighed again, nodding a bit resignedly. “She… it’s a bit embarrassing, really. And she was disturbed by it at first. I daresay I was too, about as much. She said she felt like I’d been… a… guard, somewhere she’d been held captive. Which of course we both knew was absurd; I’ve never dealt with prisoners in any capacity, just as she’d never been one and we’d never met before that.” A faint smirk touched his lips. “I think she became friends with me after that half just to spite the fact that she apparently disliked me on sight, at first.” 

“That… is an interesting story, and more common of the Fading than you might expect,” Dorian replied thoughtfully, arms folding across his chest. 

“Wait, really?” Cullen frowned over his tea. “How do you mean?” 

“Since it’s a phenomenon I experience, I doubt it comes as any surprise to hear that I’ve done a great deal of reading about others’ experiences with it. I am rather incorrigibly curious. While I’ve never had a Fade like that myself, a great many others I’ve talked to have. No one really knows why that particular type of vision is such a common one… except that it also seems to be geographic. I’m from Tevinter, you see, and almost no Faded born there has that sort of vision, but it’s exceedingly common in both Orlais and Ferelden, and to a lesser extent, Antiva and Rivain.” He paused. Smirked. “My own tend to be intriguing but far less adversarial, for the most part. For instance, I must now confess that my ‘guess’ about your playing chess wasn’t one. If one is inclined to believe some of the more… colorful… theories, some other version of the two of us have played together, before.” 

“Huh.” The sound was ejected as almost a laugh, and Cullen shook his head, giving Dorian a slow, almost crafty (that was interesting) smile. “That’s… well, I’m not sure I wouldn’t call that adversarial. I’m _terribly_ competitive at chess.” 

“Are you, now?” Dorian asked, grinning. “Careful, you’ll make me want to test that out.” 

There was that blush again. For someone who clearly knew how to be provocative, the Commander - _Captain_ \- was rather paradoxically bashful about it. 

“I’m always careful.” To Dorian’s delight, Cullen smirked back. 

Dorian couldn’t resist. 

“Are you… sassing me, Captain? I didn’t know you had it in you.” 

There was a beat, and something that looked like surprise, shaken off before completely acknowledged. Or maybe it was just Dorian’s imagination. 

“Well, now you do,” Cullen replied, suddenly both complacent and impervious. And a tiny bit smug. He cleared his throat. “So… what did you actually want to know about the riftwar, that’s not already in a history book somewhere?” 

Dorian took the return to their intended topic smoothly, nodding half to Cullen and half to himself. “A personal perspective, of course. What was the Breach like? How many self-preservation-deficient scientists did you have to deal with scurrying about while you tried to deal with the incursion of… creatures?” His physicist friend was, in fact, one of those, though to her colorfully-worded frustration, the radiation from the nuclear meltdown that had opened the thing in the first place had overwhelmed more of their measurements than not. 

“It was…” Cullen frowned and sipped his tea. “Big. And I don’t just mean that it took up a lot of space in the sky, though it did. It felt… deep. The closer I got, the more it felt like I was looking out… a porthole, of some sort, into a whole ocean’s worth of things beyond. Couldn’t see much, mind you; too chaotic, too many demons.” 

“Demons,” Dorian repeated, eyebrows rising. Not that he hadn’t heard the term; it just always seemed far too… melodramatic. 

“If you’ve got a better word for something that looks like a big… fiery, angry balloon and gets bigger when you shoot it, I’m all ears.” Cullen’s reply was dry. “That was just some of them, of course; I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures.” 

Dorian chuckled. “...Fair enough, I suppose.” 

“The scientists were a mixed bag. Some of them stayed out of the way… and some of them tried to tell us we should be taking the demons prisoner instead of blowing them to the Void. Not a very helpful suggestion.” 

“No, I don’t suppose it would have been.” 

“The basic difference in perspective was obvious, and almost a bit funny, in hindsight. See some horrific abomination pop out of a hole in the sky - do you shoot it, because it’s trying to rip your head off? Or do you get really excited about how a creature like that could even exist, let alone rip someone’s head off? The biologists were the worst, honestly. I’m all for studying new and exotic lifeforms, mind you, but not while it’s wreaking havoc like those things were.” 

That sounded about right. 

“What about… the religious angle?” he asked more carefully. This subject was apt to get touchy, in his experience. “There are a lot of things people have said about why the Breach finally closed.” 

“Are you asking what I heard people say, or what I believe?” Cullen asked, expression neutral. 

“Either. Both.” 

He nodded. “Well, I mean, I heard pretty much the same things you can read about. Andraste… Andraste and the Maker… a lot of people, mostly elves, swore they saw the Two Wolves. I think people saw what made them feel best about it. There was something going on, and as much as I consider myself a skeptic, I understand why people felt or saw what they did. Bit of a unique situation.” He shrugged, looking at first uncomfortable, then wry, once more. “For my own part, I was in a medical tent with second-degree burns over quite a lot of my body at the time. So, I really have no idea what happened, first-hand. I’m more inclined to believe that the thing just wasn’t stable and collapsed on itself, honestly.” 

It just sort of came out. “Second-degree burns?! You’re far too pretty for that, perish the thought.” 

Cullen blinked. Blushed again, raising his hands briefly. “I - heh. I’m glad you think so, but I assure you, that happened.” A glint of crafty humor returned to his gaze despite his obvious embarrassment, and he added, “I’d offer to show you where it did leave scars, but the restaurant staff might disapprove.” 

“You Fereldans and your _propriety_ ,” Dorian sighed, eyes flicking ceiling-ward in mock pain. 

“We are good at that.” 

“That in mind, would it be properly genteel of me to perhaps invite you for drinks and chess, sometime soon?” He gave Cullen his best, slightly devilish smile. “For continued research purposes, of course.” 

The former soldier snorted softly. “... Of course.”

…

“Gloat all you like; the game isn’t over yet,” Cullen murmured as Dorian made a particularly devastating move with his queen… though his eyes were playful. 

“Whatever makes you feel better, Commander.” 

The title had become something of an ongoing joke between them, over the past three weeks of meeting for coffee (or tea, in Cullen’s case) and chess. Sometimes Dorian very much wished he knew where that really came from. 

“It really does, because, you see…” Dorian’s heart sank as he recognized that tone… that gleam in his opponent’s eye that meant… “... _now_ , it’s over, and I’m feeling rather good, I’d say. Checkmate.” 

_Bastard_. 

Dorian won sometimes, when they played, but that ‘sometimes’ was not nearly what he’d have preferred. Still, he did enjoy a challenge.. and doubly so, attached to eyes like that. 

“Well, now _I_ am miserable, and I hope you’re happy,” he huffed, grudgingly tipping over his king. 

“ _Well_ , indeed.” Cullen snorted a chuckle. “Whatever can I do to make it up to you? Besides losing next time, mind you; I won’t do that.” 

He couldn’t have asked for a better opening. “Come to Haven Polytechnic’s physics department press party with me, as my date,” he suggested, almost casually. While Dorian wasn’t directly affiliated with the department himself, he was producing enough press coverage of his friends’ work (in particular his book chapter) that he’d received an invitation. Having been the star student of the book’s main editor didn’t hurt, either. “Terribly awkward, going to such things alone.” 

“Your _date_ , is it?” Cullen was smirking and trying to sound smug - which impression was again belied by the flush that crept across his cheeks. The man was truly adorable. 

“Exactly so. I’d be terribly pleased.” 

Cullen’s smirk deepened, and Dorian began to already be pleased… but… soberness retook the other man’s features. “I… I’m not good at this.”

“If you don’t want to, of course, I completely understand,” Dorian added hastily. “You’ve been a great help, and I’ve been enjoying our little chess rivalry, but please don’t let me make - “

“Hey.” Cullen stopped him with another serious look and a tilt of his head. “I said I’m not good at this, not that I didn’t want to do it. It’s… been a while. And you’re so… I don’t want to be someone holding you down.” 

Dorian’s sense of humor chose that moment to reassert itself. “I rather like being held down, in the right circumstances. Fair warning.” 

That brought a deeper flush to Cullen’s, which in turn made Dorian grin all over again. “...Right. I’ll… keep that in mind. So… yes. I mean, I’d love to go to this party with you.”

“Perfect.” 

Dorian meant it. 

…

It wasn’t as though Dorian wasn’t used to rejection. Wasn’t used to an opportunity, a job, a story falling through. 

So it shouldn’t have hit him as hard as it did, when he got the email from his former professor and editor, about the book “shifting direction” and his chapter being preemptively cut. She was terribly sorry, of course, but knew he understood these things - how politics demanded that limited space be ceded to other people with bigger names, who would draw more readers to the text. 

Something something educational priorities. 

Dorian almost threw his phone across the room. 

It wasn’t as though he’d already _written_ the bloody thing, or anything, or spent hours and weeks and months of his time and energy focused on producing something worthy of this text HPU was putting together - oh wait. Yes, yes it was. 

Yes, he _understood_ , but he didn’t want to. 

It was bound to happen sometime or another; he was a new writer. Popular, but still wet-behind-the-ears from an academic standpoint. He wasn’t going to make copies fly off the shelf, sure. 

But didn’t these stories deserve to be told? His chapter was apparently to be replaced by something entirely different, some sociologist’s years of interviews with the Faded and how they experienced the phenomenon science had only very recently explicitly recognized. Never mind that Dorian was one, himself. 

He was dialing Cullen’s number before he entirely realized he mean to do so. 

“Oh, Dorian! Hey. How’s it going?” The now-familiar, warm voice on the other end made something bitter and angry within him begin chewing on its own tail. 

“They’re dropping my chapter,” he answered leadenly, without preamble. “I just got the email from Professor de Fer. All this writing, all this talking…” _Your story. Your story should matter._ “Well, it’s been an intriguing exercise, I suppose.” 

There was a pause on the other end. Then… “So… that’s it? She just says your work’s not going in the book, and it isn’t?” 

“Pretty much,” Dorian muttered darkly, feeling his face heat already with the awareness that he must sound petulant. 

_“Why?”_

“Academic politics. They want to make room for someone with a bigger name, and think I should be satisfied with some kind of web-published think piece, I suppose. I’m the junior contributor, after all.” 

“Wait, but you’ve already put so much work into this…”

“Yes,” Dorian sighed, eyes closing. “Yes, I have. But! That’s the way this works, I suppose.” The cheer in his voice sounded all kinds of false to him. 

“This was…” Cullen trailed off. 

“This was supposed to be my first Serious Writer gig, yes. Not in an online newspaper, or a blog. But a book that some courses might use as a textbook in the future. I’m… not happy, to put it mildly.” 

There was hesitation on the other end of the line. “Do you… do you want to meet for chess, or… come over?” 

Dorian could have laughed. Yes, yes he did. Very badly. But he also didn’t know what to make of his own state, just then; didn’t know how to think about engaging with someone else who was tentatively reaching out, tentatively offering him something he desperately wanted. It was clear how that sort of thing tended to turn out for him, wasn’t it? 

“Ahh… not now. Thank you. I just… I needed to tell someone. I’m sorry to take your time up with this.” 

“Hey. Dorian, really. It’s alright. You can take all the time you want; I’m sorry you’re - “ Cullen was trying to reach out. He could feel it. It hurt, even more than rejection, somehow, to have someone actually give a damn like this, when he wasn’t even going to get to tell the man’s story. Wasn’t going to be able to give him the thing their whole interaction had been predicated upon. 

“Thanks.” He cut Cullen off, sighing again. “I’ll… talk to you later, I guess. I’m going to go bury myself in some literature that has nothing to do with what I’m writing.” 

He could almost feel the pause, and pained swallow on the other end of the line. “Sounds like a plan. Catch you later, Dorian.” 

…

Dorian was not in a much better mood when he met his friend Josephine at the bar three days later. He had worked damned hard on that book chapter. 

But Josie had insisted he come out that evening, as she wanted to go, and Cassandra was busy. The music, at least, perked him up a little bit automatically as he walked into the crowded ground-level establishment. 

“Dorian! I took the liberty of getting you started,” she said with a wide, open smile, passing him a clear, faintly fizzy drink. Elderflower gin and tonic, he knew without even tasting it. Josie did know his preferences, and he couldn’t help but warm up a bit in her presence. 

“Thank you, my incomparable friend,” he said with a smile and a raise of eyebrows as he accepted the drink and a stool next to her. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

“Just long enough for the drinks, really,” she assured him, brightly. “I’m glad you’re here; I have a story for you.” 

“Oh, do you?” he asked, interest piqued. It sounded like gossip, and Josephine Montilyet, for all she protested she wasn’t a particular fan of such nonsense, always knew the best bits. 

“One you’ll like. It’s the story of a gallant soldier facing off against one Professor de Fer.” 

_…?_

“A soldier, you say?” 

“Oh yes, quite literally. Someone who has _apparently_ been getting to know you rather well, lately, and that you hadn’t even told me about, yet.” 

Cullen, then. His stomach twisted itself into a nervous knot immediately. 

“We’ve been playing chess and talking about the riftwar. Interesting, surely, but not so far outside what you should expect from me, don’t you think?” 

She gave him an arch look. “For a man who’s willing to take on Lady Iron herself for you? I can’t imagine that’s all it is.” 

“It is, truly.” He laughed, a bit helplessly. “I suppose he is a gallant one. But clearly you have me at an informational disadvantage; please continue.” 

Josie grinned. “ _Well._ He showed up in Professor de Fer’s office two days ago, for a meeting. I had this from her administrative assistant. And he told her about the chapter he’s been helping you with, and how important he thought it was…” 

Dorian bit back a sigh. As if that was going to help anything. 

“... And offering interviews with military friends of his who have thus far refused to talk to the press, if your chapter were to maintain its coverage in the upcoming book…” 

He blinked. “Wait... “ 

“Oh, yes. He was quite concerned with making sure your piece went where it should go.” 

“.. … _And?!_ ” Dorian asked, drink all but forgotten in his hand. “What did her Majesty say?” 

“She was going to email you after the weekend was over, but I don’t feel bad about passing it on beforehand, you’re back in the text. He has her convinced.” 

Dorian wasn’t sure he’d ever felt such a profound mix of warmth and twisted insides before in his life. Cullen had reached out to help him, without being asked. Without even having been told who was in control of the project, for Dorian was fairly certain he’d never mentioned the professor by name. 

“Josie, if you’re pulling my leg…”

“I would never.”

And she was perhaps the one person he actually trusted, in saying that. “I believe you,” he sighed with a wondering smile. “It sounds like… I have a friend to thank.” 

“I rather doubt he’s just a friend, at this point.” She gave him a dry look. “Tell me you’ll ask him to the department party.”

“ _Far_ ahead of you on that one, at least, my dear,” he said with a slight chuckle, shaking his head. 

…

“I can’t believe you want and talked to Madame de Fer without _mentioning_ it to me!” His voice came out more petulantly than he meant. “I mean… “

“I’m so sorr- “

“I mean,” Dorian continued doggedly, “that’s perfectly wonderful, and I couldn’t possibly have expected it. Or believed it, for that matter, if it hadn’t been Josie who told me.” 

“...Well.” Cullen coughed, suddenly looking bashful again. It was a good look for him. “It seemed like the right thing to do. There’s a lot of important stories you’re telling. Not just mine. And it’s important to you.” 

“Still, Cullen.” 

“Still, what?” the other man’s voice echoed, wry and curious. 

“Thank you.” Dorian injected weeks of pent feeling into those two words, along with his considerable gratitude for the surface situation. “One, this might well make my career. Two, of course it just meant a lot to me because of the work. Three… I’m not used to this. I’m used to having to fight tooth and nail for myself, not letting someone else give a damn and do this sort of thing for me.” 

“You’re not 'letting' me give a damn.” Almost hesitantly, Cullen’s hand reached across their chess table and overlaid his. His fingers were warm against Dorian’s tattooed skin. “I’d do it whether you let me or not.” 

Something clenched in Dorian’s chest, his eyes latching onto Cullen’s hand where it nearly covered his own. 

“No… I suppose I’m not,” he breathed. “Still. Thank you.” 

“You are entirely welcome,” Cullen replied softly. “You wanted to hear my story. You cared about it. You payed attention to…. me, to all of this. To what I’ve said about being a soldier. Even though I know you’ve got friends in the physics crew. You could have just taken what they said and run with it, not looked farther.” 

“I wouldn’t be a very good journalist then, would I?” Dorian managed to ask, wryly. 

“I suppose not. Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it.” 

“Well, good.” Dorian managed to draw himself up, bring his pride back to bear. “I’m terribly worthy of appreciation. And I cannot wait to appreciate you on the dance floor at the party, mind you.” 

“...Heh. Me… me neither.” Cullen smiled, ears pink, as they soften were, then quirked a grin. “Speaking of, I’ve got a friend whose commentary I might have promised to Professor de Fer, who would love to be at that party. For curiosity’s sake. She’s still in the military. Intelligence operative.” 

“ _A spy?!_ ” Dorian gasped, eyes filling with delight. “How very cinematic of you, Commander. it may well be that I have a friend or two I could try to set this sneaky friend of yours up with, if I knew more about her…” 

Cullen’s free hand dipped into his pocket, thumb swiping about to bring up a picture before he offered the device to Dorian. “Her name is Leliana. She’d as gladly go with a man or a lady, as a date; she’s just curious to be there.” 

_Curious, was she?_ That, Dorian could help with. He couldn’t have kept the mischief from his eyes even had he cared to try. “It just so happens… I have a friend who told me she would attend if and only if I found her a suitable date. And I can only imagine this... “

“Lieutenant,” Cullen supplied.

“Lieutenant Leliana is at least a very _interesting_ person….”

“Oh, she definitely is that.” 

“Well, then. We should set her up with my friend, Morrigan… who will be terribly peevish I actually made good on my boast I could find someone to her tastes, but I truly believe they might enjoy each other.” 

Cullen laughed freely, his fingers squeezing slightly around Dorian’s, which made a wave of warmth wash through him. “Let’s make that happen, then. Should be amusing, for most or all parties, at least…”

…

The hotel ballroom was elegant, but, given that it was predominantly a crowd of academics using it, not at all decorated for the night of the party. 

The dress inside would no doubt be a vastly varied mix of the barely-acceptable to the ultra-formal, with professors and reporters and the odd celebrity mixing together for this particularly strange night of celebration. Dorian, for his part, stepped out of the taxi he’d taken with Cullen in a pale green suit with tails, while Cullen followed in more sober grey. 

They weren’t the fanciest creatures there that night, by any means, but they certainly could not be accused of being drab, either. 

“This is… a lot… glitzier than I’d have thought,” Cullen murmured, leaning pleasantly close to Dorian’s ear to mouth the words. 

“It’s what happens when you tell academics they have to mingle with the press,” he replied drily. “They all have some idea of how to clean up and deal with this, but it’s a very… varied idea.” 

His lips turned up into a sharp smirk when he noted a very particular couple in what seemed to be a very spirited discussion over near, but not quite on the dance floor. 

“It looks like our friends are getting along,” Dorian observed, feeling smug as he noted the subtle markers that said Morrigan was in fact very invested in the interaction. 

“That’s your physicist friend? Good call setting her up with Leliana; she seems… passionate.” 

Dorian laughed. “That, she certainly is, much as she’d rather most of us didn’t realize it. I do hope they have fun.”

“Well, I know Leliana is, for what it’s worth.” Cullen snorted a laugh. “Just from this ten seconds, they’re either going to finish tonight in bed with one another or mortal enemies, and I’m really not sure which one is more likely.” 

“With Morrigan, at least, I’m not sure I’d rule out the possibility of both of those.” He grinned, shaking his head. He mostly didn’t mean that. Mostly. “At least it will be interesting.”

“There is that,” Cullen agreed, glancing to Dorian in a way that lingered just a heartbeat too long...

 _...Soft and sacred, the way he looks at me. How do I tell him, I like the look better when we’re alone?_

The words weren’t thought, nor heard, but they seemed to be whispered into Dorian’s ear, all the same, at that moment, in a voice he didn’t recognize. 

What did _that_ mean? He’d Faded again with Cullen a few times since that first meeting - mostly (unsurprisingly) over chess - but this… this was something different. 

“You alright, Dorian?” came Cullen’s voice, warm and real and present, just next to him. 

Dorian nodded immediately. “More than that, by a great deal. I just… heard something.” 

“What do you mean?” Cullen snagged flutes of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray for the both of them, and Dorian clinked his glass against Cullen’s half in a daze. 

“It wasn’t something I said, or you said. It was something… someone said about us. I don’t know who; I don’t know why.” He smiled weakly, raising the glass to drink. “Not the sort of thing one normally gets from a Fade.” 

“What did they say?” Cullen asked curiously, head tilting slightly. 

Then it was, at last, Dorian’s turn to blush. How could he repeat that? It felt like words from his own psyche, yet somehow not. “It was… commentary on how I like the way you look at me, basically.” 

“But from someone else.”

“I don’t pretend that this always makes sense,” Dorian replied, a hint of petulance coloring his tone. 

“Well, then.” Cullen smiled, and squared his shoulders. “How do you want me to look at you? That seems to bear asking.” 

Dorian blinked, reaching a hand out to catch the other man’s, warm fingers twining between warm fingers. “Like you are. I couldn’t ask for anything better,” he said honestly, quietly. “Thank you for coming with me tonight.”

“Of course.” Cullen’s answering smile was warm and open in a way that Dorian didn’t know how to replicate, much as he tried. 

Instead… 

“Would you like to dance, then?” he asked, trying for nonchalance. 

“I’d love to.” 

And the soldier’s arms who pulled him into that waltz were solid and real in a way the Fading always seemed to imply but never quite delivered on. As were the lips that ghosted along Dorian’s smooth jaw, and promised a more direct encounter with his own lips later. 

But they had time.


End file.
